Well I put it to the vote, and it turns out that the "binned" post the majority wanted to read was this one. I was surprised, and, checking on my statcounter, the vote seems to have been swung by some last minute voting from those who have not commented..so in a way the Silent Majority has spoken.

When I finished this originally I thought, first of all, that there was too much scope for offence being taken locally here in Cheesetown. I also worried that it was maudlin. I've since decided that the Cheesetown Mafia aren't too nippy around blog sites, and I can probably risk it. Plus, the Silent Majority has spoken, hey?

Looking back over this blog, I was struck by how few entries I have giving useful advice. This latest is an attempt to rectify this. And, yes it's a bit on the specialist side, but then 18 months ago I didn't expect to be clearing out a dead man's flat either.
Here goes. Ten hints for clearing out after the dead.

Hint1 There's no rush. Don't expect that you'll have to clear out household and personal goods immediately. Wayne had his own flat when he died. It took over a year before the lawyers were finished.

Don't bother asking the lawyers what's taking the time. They'll only
look at you like you farted, mutter about The Pension Provider, and
charge more.

Hint 2 Mind you, having said there's no rush, don't leave clearing out till
the last minute, when anyone who could and would help is on holiday. This
will mean you end up doing it alone.

Hint 3 Gumtree, Freecycle and house clearing agencies are only going to get
you so far. Turns out they're all choosy about what they take. And
nobody's going to want a five year old telly. At the end of the day it's
going to be you, the bin bags and boxes making trips to charity shops
and the tip.

Hint 4 Take more boxes and bin bags than you think you could ever need. And
don't forget the newspapers to wrap the dishes and glasses in. If you
do, you'll end up like me; wrapping it all up in Christmas wrapping
paper you found in the cupboard. This looks strange when you drop it off
at the charity shop.

Hint 5 Bear in mind that the dead can always surprise you. Who'd have thought
Wayne of all people would have kept all his clothes folded so bloody
neatly? They are nearly all clothes you remember well. And this was the man who
considered money spent on clothes money wasted. There's going to be the
shirts and jackets yoU bought him, the T shirts from holidays in Sri
Lanka and Vietnam, the sweatshirts he's wearing in photos left around
you. And there will still be the smell of him, soap and talcum and
tobacco from the clothes in the wardrobe.

Hint 6 It starts to get really tough when you come to binning the stuff
that was important to him that no one wants anymore. Postcards, his
books on Maori history, CAMRA membership card, his list of Monro
climbing guide carefully annotated.

Hint 7 Don't rule out that in between the birth certificates, and CVs, and old travel diaries and photos, you won't find a love letter.

Which is not written to you (see hint 6).

A love letter written to a mutual friend who has kept unsurprisingly quiet about all this for years.

Hint 8 Use the anger. Old love letters to other people are actually one
fantastic way of fuelling you through this. Bastard. Who cares about the
music (couple of hundred CDs and counting), the tapes (all those
hundreds of D90s dating back to London 1990), binned. Bastard. The
books, the mementos of the Springbok tour protests 1981, boxed. Going.
Bastard. The real ales guides, the travel guides, the dominoes, the
Sheffield Wednesday and All Blacks scarves. Bastard. See how you like
it when all your shit is boxed and gone.

Hint 9 The living never fail to surprise either. The van man from Bethany Trust
was round to collect the sofas and bed. Turns out his partner
committed suicide three years ago. Hung herself on the back of a door. He misunderstood the tears. What I'm saying is, always remember to bring tissues. It might not be just you that needs them.

Hint 10 You can surprise yourself. You can rise above it. I took a couple of
pictures round to Her House,because she'd said she wanted a memento.

She'd always liked the photo he had hanging in the bedroom.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

29 Response to "How to Clear Out a Dead Man's Flat"

I voted for this... probably because I had to do all this last year - although we had to do it almost immediately as it was rented. I can identify with a lot of this - but we already knew about the girlfriend.

The weirdest part was going through so much stuff that had been "ours" and I had walked away from. Certainly would have been much harder to do it the way you had to...but great post :)thank you !

But you do have to remember that it was YOU who was there in the end and for the last few months.I'm glad that I took on cleaning out my brother's space---not sure how my elderly parents would have taken that much printed porn.My fathers wardrobe had a distinctive sweet smell----I cleared his gear for Mum---did find a couple of love letters from Mum---things I didn't really want to think about.Rationalised Mums gear when she moved to a retirement unit---and again when she moved to the hostel of a nursing home---luckily they would take most of what I left behind when she died.Because I'm single, I am starting to rationalise my gear so that it's not a big job for whoever----luckily porn is electronic now

It's a rather bittersweet post, as one might expect. I doubt that I'll have time for a good tidy-up before I pop off, so would always be tempted to leave some dirty dishes just to annoy my Mum. She might find Hint 8 useful then.

When we cleared out my Dad's things, we found his flight log from WW2. One notation said that the plane had crash-landed. We never heard that story. And in the back was a rather sexy photo of Veronica Lake - not a side of my father I'd ever seen.

We had 24 hours to clean out my Mum's room in the nursing home. A bit like tearing the bandage off quickly.

Welcome to the car crash...

I have a complicated bereavement. I was only reconciled with my ex, W, months before he died of cancer. Luckily (for him) I was made redundant and able to care for him while he died here at home - October 20th.Currently getting through it with our son, aka the Cherub, dog Ned, and friends here in CHEESETOWN.